


Countermelody

by siderealSandman



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: AU-Soul Eater, F/M, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 03:36:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9053629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siderealSandman/pseuds/siderealSandman
Summary: The bond between a weapon and a meister is a sacred one; one that dictates life and death in the pursuit of souls and the destruction of kishin. For many pairs, the bond is established at first sight. For Marinette, the bond was sealed the moment she heard a single, faint piano chord





	

 

_A sound soul dwells within a sound mind and a sound body._

The words bounced around Marinette’s head as the heavy steel door closed behind her with a thud that echoed deep into the empty school building as the cackling sun set through the windows. Stowing the keys she borrowed from Miss Bustier in pocket, she shifted her gym bag on her shoulder as she made her way towards the small practice room off to the side of the gymnasium. As she walked, she passed trophy case, glancing up at famous weapons and meister pairs that had come before her. Amid the wicked looking weapons and their now legendary partners, a young dark-haired woman stood with a toothy smile, balancing a hammer that weighed easily twice as much on her shoulder.

 

It spoke volumes about the depth of her parents’ bond that her mother could wield her massive father like he was made of Styrofoam when so many students in their year failed to even lift him. Her parents’ partnership was one of perfect symmetry, crushing hundreds of proto-kishin like ants before walking away, starting a bakery and raising their daughter. No one in the history of Shibusen had attained so much power and prestige only to surrender it, opting for a civilian life in Tom’s hometown of Paris.

 

Part of her wished she was still back home, attending regular school like a regular person instead of worrying about whether or not she could live up to her parents’ legacy.

 

Stealing into the practice room, Marinette dropped her gym bag on the polished wooden floor, taking a deep breath as her eyes drifted across the rows and rows of practice weapons meisters could use to sharpen their skills. For the last three and a half months, the meisters had classes separate from potential weapons, preparing them for combat and teaching the fundamentals of soul resonance, and weapon theory. Soul resonance came easily to Marinette; wives tales suggested this was because she was the child of a weapon and meister, but Marinette attributed it to the hours of study she put herself through since she had left home. The academic part wasn’t what concerned her; she felt confident that she could pass entrance exams with no concern.

 

What concerned her was the more _physical_ aspect of things.

 

With a small sigh, Marinette hefted a wooden staff off a weapon rack, twirling idly for a few moments before it slipped out of her hands, skidding across the polished wooden floor with a harsh clattering din that echoed off the walls. She had never even swung so much as a croquet mallet, let alone weapons designed to destroy kishin eggs before they hatched. And while her partner’s resonance was supposed to make things easier, she couldn’t rely on them entirely. Partner selection was less than twenty-four hours away, and if Marinette had any chance of getting paired with someone who complemented her, she had to be sure she was as attractive candidate as possible.

 

Picking up the staff, she swung it back and forth like a greatsword, envisioning herself blocking, dodging, and stabbing oncoming threats. While it wasn’t uncommon for meisters to wield more than one weapon in their lives, school pairings were meant to last for the students’ entire stay. Partners were supposed to do everything together; study, fight, train, and even live in the same school-sublet apartments. The last thing Marinette wanted was to be stuck with someone she despised for lack of a compatible partner. Since starting school, Marinette had been plagued with nightmares of being forced to wield Chloe Bourgeois in some kind of twisted miscarriage of academic justice. She could hardly tolerate the idea of living with her, let alone having her soul so tightly entwined with someone with such a flagrant disregard for everyone who wasn’t-

 

Marinette paused mid-swing as a single, pearly piano chord echoed somewhere deep within the halls of the school.

 

She tensed for a moment, ears straining against the silence of the empty building to see if she was hearing right. For a moment, there was nothing, but as Marinette turned to resume her practice, another note followed; faint enough that she had to strain her ears to catch it but clear enough to give her pause. The distant, atonal plunking paused as Marinette stopped to listen, hardly daring to breathe for fear she might give herself away to the mysterious player.

 

She took a tentative step forward, and the song began again; a slow, thoughtful melody Marinette must’ve heard somewhere before since she found herself quietly humming along with the piece as she stepped out in search of the phantom tune.

 

In her three months at the academy, she had never had an excuse to venture into the older buildings. Most of her orientation took place in the front part of the school, so finding the source of the melody was harder than she anticipated. The old building had clearly been designed to keep some kind of minotaur imprisoned, with corridors leading to dead ends and classrooms that had long since been boarded up. Still, the steady melody pulled her deeper into the building until she stood outside a room labelled _Theater._

Hesitantly, Marinette pushed the door open, sticking her head inside as the unmistakable melody grew louder. She found herself standing at the back of an old amphitheater, rows of movie theater style seating all pointed towards a wooden stage illuminated by a few patchy stage lights.

 

Two things struck her instantly; the massive, pearly white grand piano and the boy playing it. Though it was in bad need of tuning, the blond young man managed to coax something resembling a coherent melody from the old and battered keys. Even from the back of the auditorium, she could make out his features knitted in concentration, the way his hands moved with practiced grace from one note to another. He seemed somehow familiar; like she had met him briefly before but couldn’t quite place where. But more maddening than that was the song he was playing. As she had searched for him, Marinette racked her brain, trying to remember the movie or the TV show she must’ve heard the piece from. It was so familiar, and yet she couldn’t identify it. If anything, she wanted to find the player if only to satisfy her maddening curiosity.

 

Now that she had found him, the music was suddenly the last thing she wanted to ask about.

 

Hesitating, she took a step closer, wincing as the floorboard beneath her foot creaked loud enough to cut through the soft melody and draw the boy’s gaze across the auditorium. They froze, owlishly staring at one another for a long moment before Marinette took another step forward.

 

“Sorry, I didn’t think anyone else was here,” the boy laughed, standing up from the piano bench and scratching the back of his neck. “I-I didn’t bother you, did I?”

 

“No, no!” Marinette said, waving her staff dismissively. “Not at all; I was just downstairs practicing and I heard someone playing. Th-thin walls, you know?”

 

Marinette tapped her staff on the ground, punching a hole through the floorboards accidentally.

 

“No kidding,” the boy chuckled, hands in his pockets as he made his way to the front of the stage. “I...take it you’re a meister then?”

 

“Hopefully,” Marinette chuckled, leaning on one of the chairs until a pained creaking sound caused her to jump up before it crumbled beneath her. “Kinda depends on whether or not a weapon accepts me as one, doesn’t it?”

 

“We have a big class this year,” the boy said, gingerly stepping down the creaky steps. “Plenty of chances to make a good first impression…do you favor the staff?”

 

“Huh?” Marinette glanced at the simple wooden stick in her hands with a small shrug. “N-Not really. Well, I don’t really favor anything right now. I didn’t want to train with a sword all my life only to get matched with a shield for a partner, so I never really specialized, you know?”

 

“I can imagine,” the boy said with a small shrug. Judging by the fact that she had never seen the boy before (she would have remembered if she had), Marinette assumed he must be one of her potential partners she was supposed to meet the next day. She had hoped to have more time to compose her sales-pitch; maybe pick up a cool twirling weapon attack she could wow the crowd with.

 

Now all she could do was hope she didn’t put her foot in her mouth.

 

“What was that song you were playing?” Marinette asked. “I just…I’m sure I’ve heard it somewhere before.”

 

The boy shrugged, shaking his head. “Uh….I don’t see how you could have? It’s just something I’ve been playing with in my downtime.”

 

Marinette frowned. “You’re saying _you_ wrote that?”

 

“Last I checked, I did,” the boy said, glancing around with an uneasy smile. “I know it isn’t the best, but-”

 

“Nonono _no_!” Marinette said, cursing her choice of words. “I wasn’t implying you sucked or _it_ sucked o-or anything like that! I was just…”

 

Marinette took a deep breath, smoothing her shirt out as she looked up at him.

 

“I just…thought I had heard it somewhere before,” Marinette shrugged. The boy looked her over with a curious glance, eyes roaming between her face and the simple practice staff in her hand. For a moment, Marinette wondered if he thought she was some kind of freak, but he spoke before she could open her mouth to try and take back what she said.

 

“…I’m Adrien,” Adrien said, holding out his hand after a moment with a small smile. “Sorry, I guess I should have introduced myself earlier, right?”

 

“I should have done the same,” Marinette said, taking Adrien’s hand with a light squeeze. A faint, warm tingling sensation crept through her fingers, and Marinette had to resist the urge to harmonize her soul wavelength with his. “Marinette.”

 

She left out her last name for the moment; she didn’t want to be recognized as the daughter of Sabine Cheng and Tom Dupain just yet. In the first, few, fleeting moments when Marinette met Adrien for the first time, she wanted to just be herself.

 

“Nice to meet you.”

 

* * *

 

 

“ _Run!”_

The scream echoed throughout the darkened streets as the ravenous creature pursued its prey.

 

A hulking mass of black steel plate armor dragged an enormous greataxe behind it, scraping it across the broken cobblestones it left with each step as it pursued the terrified couple through the empty town square. Anna tossed a trash can in the path of the monster; another tipped a café table as they ran past. Neither seemed to so much as phase the beast who ground every obstacle put in its path beneath its heel.

 

Panting, they charged down a side street, scrambling as the axe slammed into the coffee shop, sending a shower of brick shards and dust raining down on their heads.

 

“Keep going!” Lilly panted, grabbing her girlfriend’s hand and tugging her on as the axe raised to come down for one final swing. The shadow of the grisly blade hung, eclipsing the light of the cackling moon for a brief moment as Anna clutched her girlfriend’s shoulder, trying in vain to shield her from the deathblow…that never came.

 

The armored figured turned, axe raised to glare at two figures leaning against opposite sides of a nearby stairwell, surveying the scene before them with a wary glance. The creature turned away from the couple it pursued, allowing them to escape as the teenagers made their way down the staircase.

 

“Is it just me, or are these guys getting bigger?” Adrien sighed, jamming his hands in his pockets as the armored figure lumbered towards them. “What are these guys _eating_?”

 

“Human souls?” Marinette chuckled, poking Adrien in the side. “All these fatty kishin-eggs are going give you a paunch.”

 

“I think we get enough exercise,” Adrien shrugged, not even twitching as the creature’s helm opened, revealing a row of jagged, knife-like teeth. “Might be too full for dinner, but we can still go out, right?”

 

“We’ll see,” Marinette said, reaching out for Adrien’s hand. “For now-”

 

The axe swung as Adrien vanished in a flash of white light, replaced by a long, silver quarterstaff. She felt his soul hum in tune with hers as she swung the staff up, effortlessly parrying the axe blow and sending the armored knight falling back with a crash that shattered the cobblestone it landed on.

 

“-we have work to do,” Marinette said, hefting Adrien onto her shoulders as the kishin-egg slowly lumbered to its feet. “Black Knight Mordred-”

 

“-time for you to call it a _knight_ ,” Adrien’s voice echoed in the back of her mind as Mordred let out a deafening roar. “Not a fan of puns, is he?”

 

“Doesn’t really matter what he’s a fan of anymore,” Marinette said, gripping Adrien with both hands. “Because his soul is _mine_!”

 

Marinette leapt, swinging her partner high in the air as the moon cackled in appreciation of the carnage that was about to unfold.

**Author's Note:**

> Gift for my friend and beta Pardonmeow! Dragging her into Soul Eater hell has been the highlight of my 2016 >:3


End file.
